Is "Pay for convenience" the new pay to win?

As title says. Is pay for convenience the new pay to win? Many MMOs are offering advantages to skipping content, easier leveling, access to endgame year, great items/vehicles/ships/mounts etc.

In many ways, paying for convenience is worse than blatant pay to win. At least pay to win is very obvious and you know up front that the game is pay to win. In paying for convenience models, its a lot more underhanded, secretive and at first its fine till you reach endgame and find the game is designed around these "products"...the developers make the items VERY hard to get, sell overpowered products or products that...again...would be very hard to attain otherwise. The developers can design gameplay in a way where you almost NEED to buy pets...but pretend you don't really have to buy pets or any of the products because "you can get it all in-game" (which is often far harder and far more time consuming than just paying for it).

But players think its okay, because "you can get it all in-game". Another reason its worse, because its such an underhanded term that is seen as acceptable to most because all/most/some of the items can be got in-game. But, to name one MMO...I spent days trying to get a pet off the market in black desert online...literally days and so many hours.

Not once did I get one. Sure RNG...but that is what I mean. The MMO in question is designed to make you buy a pet or waste time getting one. And the MMO is also designed in a way that pets are almost needed...but not quite...all makes it a very shady design decision...and many MMOs are just like that.

Now developers know players hate pay to win games...now they moved onto a far more shady and underhanded scheme..."pay for convenience" and design the game in a way that makes it so you "need" the product...but not quite...and make it VERY hard to earn in-game.

When 2 words have entirely different definitions, like winning and convenience

Paying for each is not going to be the same thing

Somehow I think this thread went over your head. The OP is asking if convenience items, features, or services are as effective at putting players ahead as pay-to-win schemes (effectively becoming pay to win schemes) and if they are replacing PTW as the de facto microtransaction monetary scheme.

Yes, they are one and the same. There's always different degrees of "win" to each and every thing sold. But it's all advantage in one form or another. Even selling art only is "win" for the player who buys it, compared to the player who can't have it because he didn't buy it. And that includes items given as rewards for early support.

In my day MMORPG's were so hard we fought our way through dungeons in the snow, uphill both ways.

Fools find no pleasure in understanding, but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon

Paying for extra bag space is pretty convenient. Paying as the only way to attain superior gear in order to win... I think this shit is self explanatory. Just play allods and you will understand what p2w means.

Offering time saving luxuries in an MMO is mostly okay with me. Let's say that in a young MMO one of the main objectives in endgame is to buy a horse so you can move around the world faster. That is a time saving luxury, not really a requirement to succeed at the game. This horse in this game is sold for what to the majority of players is a vast sum of gold. Already there is going to be a certain portion of the player base that's perfectly fine going to a gold seller site or buying a horse off ebay from another player. Pay to win and pay for convenience happens wether the developer sanctions it or not. I would prefer the developer being the one making the money off the 'pay to whatever' because at least there's a chance that money will be reinvested in the game. Not so with the other vultures.

Sometimes it comes down to the lesser of two evils.

That said I don't want OP items popped into existence in a cash shop. It's one thing to understand the resource of time and to market to it. It's another to sabotage your in game economy and competetive environment by selling items that no person spent the time to obtain.

Pay for convenience / pay for advantages / pay to be lazy is the new narrative and it is a narrative that suits the developers who employ it as well as those that like to use money in their games because it is not clear cut, it is a much more subjective area. It fits into the MMO because it's much harder to argue against it, unlike P2W.

There was always a negative connotation with P2W, the game got a reputation, the studio got a reputation and the players that bought stuff to "win" were viewed in much the same vein as cheaters.

Now that is all up in the air and you can bet it has been done on purpose, whales and wallet warriors run with it because it sounds so much more benign. I think it is shady as hell because it is really manipulative marketing design. It's much more persuasive because it you can argue time vs money so easily and in an MMO it's less about the winning in the first place, doesn't make it right though.

Why should we allow or accept this sort of monetisation in our games? Why should we make excuses for it?

The people who are guilty for this, the ones that are enabling it are the ones who feel they deserve what everyone else has despite not having the time to play anymore, that's pretty selfish if you ask me. If you can't earn your shit legitimately in game suck it up instead of encouraging studios to monetise things and ruin it for everybody else...

I have to go with Kano on this one... You started with "Is pay for convenience the new pay to win?" and then made an entire post with examples which are not convenience purchases...

Skipping content by jumping ahead (I keep raising voice against that since almost 8 years when it appeared in the west), artificial grind just to boost sales... those are not convenience, those are just stupid (allow content skip) or shady/greedy (when adding extra grind) developer decisions.

The real convenience purchases, personally I like those. As t0nyd said above, inventory for example. And don't mix it with the f2p restriction version, where you barely have any and you almost have to buy more... More like the LotRO version for example as a former sub (where the game was "designed" with 5 bags in mind, so that is enough, but I still have I think 9 now, because I'm a hoarder and having all the bag space possible is convenient for me and there's no "win" in there).Or (also LotRO) wardrobe slots. The default 2 is more than enough to even roleplayers, but a handful of people like to have more for experimenting with outfit combinations, without "taking off" all pieces from an outfit, and after the tries putting back the original outfit on that slot. No win there either, just convenience.Or the pocket trader/banker in several games. It might be even immersion-breaking, I don't use it much either, but occasionally I'm lazy enough to jog back to the nearest settlement. No "win" either, hell, Wildstar even has a Path skill for that, putting down stations onto the field for everyone.

Pay for convenience is just what it means, paying for convenience, not for advantage or a mythical "win". What you're looking for, was even mentioned in your own post, the rng. The "new" pay to win is the pay to gamble, a.k.a. pay for the chance of win. (i.e. lockboxes)

If it takes a month to get the sword of badassery and its in the cash shop you have a huge advantage during that month. If you can buy a mount that you normally can't get until you hit level cap you have an advantage until others hit cap. A month advantage is huge in a game that just released.

If you want to stay competitive you hit the game with your wallet and if you have to pay money to stay competitive the game is pay 2 win.

It always has been pay to win. When what you can buy helps in PvP that's worse, but when you get help in PvE that's pay to win too. In most MMOs help in PvE makes you reach higher level more quickly which in turn helps in PvP. But even if it is purely PvE game its still pay to win, you are just winning top level rather than competitive matches.

BDO the MMO the OP mentioned has limited P2W. Nearly every MMO has that or worse.

Already there is going to be a certain portion of the player base that's perfectly fine going to a gold seller site or buying a horse off ebay from another player. Pay to win and pay for convenience happens wether the developer sanctions it or not. I would prefer the developer being the one making the money off the 'pay to whatever' because at least there's a chance that money will be reinvested in the game. Not so with the other vultures.

I would much prefer that developers instituted harsh RWT punishments and enforcements.

Look at it this way: if you found out there was an illegal arms smuggler operating somewhere in your town (but you don't know where exactly), would you prefer that the police start investigating and trying to find those responsible, or would you prefer that the government starts selling arms to gangs and cartels to drive the illegal smuggler out of business by offering legitimacy?

The end result of the developers turning a blind eye to RWT and the developers actively engaging in RWT is the same: RWT happens on as large scale. The only thing that stops or diminishes RWT (notice that I'm not saying illegal or unsanctioned RWT, as they are just distinctions without a real difference created by greedy developers/publishers) is the developers cracking down on it.

When 2 words have entirely different definitions, like winning and convenience

Paying for each is not going to be the same thing

Somehow I think this thread went over your head. The OP is asking if convenience items, features, or services are as effective at putting players ahead as pay-to-win schemes (effectively becoming pay to win schemes) and if they are replacing PTW as the de facto microtransaction monetary scheme.

Nope I was just being obtuse on purpose since this topic has been beaten to death a million times over.

OP is known to use topic generators and create threads like these.

Pay to win has no actual definiton - it means entirely different things to different people, so discussing what it really means is laregely an exercise in futility.

The term "Pay to Win" bothers me somewhat. I'm an old school MMO-er (I was in High School when Ultima Online was released) and as such, life has happened to me. The "Pay for Convenience" aspect is something that appeals to me. No one wants to play a game where a credit card is all that is required to have the best gear, but the exp boost scroll mentioned in the post above this, is the balancing act between people with free time on their hands and people with jobs that can't commit to playing for hours every day. If I work, and I have a little disposable income at the end of the month, why can't I have equal footing as someone like a high school kid, who doesn't have a full time job, a house to maintain, and a wife to entertain?

The problem I see with this genre is the focus on "The Whales". If I got a 30 day double exp bonus for $15, it would be justified as helping to pay to keep the servers maintained and the staff employed, like subscription costs of yore. If I have to pay for 30 day double exp bonus for 1500 diamonds, increased chances at rare loot drops for another 1500, and unique costumes that add stats that are unobtainable from farming for 1000 diamonds/box, then that is a game I know I won't be spending much time or money on.

It depend on much advantage the convenient is. In games where it take a few thousands hours to reach max level, a exp boost scroll seemed pay to win for me.

Except reaching max level really isn't "winning" anything.

But that wasn't really the OPs point, he was bemoaning the point devs have largely shifted to designing inconvenience into their games, and then selling players the means to mitigate some of it.

BDO was a great example, many will tell you having 3 or 4 pets makes looting far more efficient.

While I've read posts on how its possible to obtain some pets in game, more often I've seen people say you really need to sink about $125 or so at the start for pets, extra bag space and maybe even a costume or two.

None of those are P2W, but again, that really wasn't the point of the OP. They are items sold by the devs to overcome intentional design "irritants" and encourage player spending beyond the initial $10 (ITS A TRAP!) purchase price.

In my day MMORPG's were so hard we fought our way through dungeons in the snow, uphill both ways.

Fools find no pleasure in understanding, but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon

I remember back in vanilla WoW when players would buy toons off eBay fully decked out. Because the servers were small, it was obvious whenever someone bought their toon. They were shunned by the community for having done so. Players that actually earned their stuff the hard way were respected.

Today people wouldn't care because if you're not fully decked out, they don't want you on their team. They shun the player who played by the rules and accept the player that doesn't.

The genre as a whole isn't the same anymore. I don't care if you have 1000 hours of free time or only a microsecond... that argument is moot. Back in vanilla there were players with 1000 hours of free time and players with only a microsecond. You may not have been time strapped but plenty of others were. And yet, the game happened anyways.

Now you're the one without the time and all the kiddies are making you look like a newb. So instead of sucking it up like the poor souls back in vanilla WoW without any free time, you go out and buy a toon so that you can be on top with all the kiddies instead of drudging away slowly to the top.

MMOs will never be like the old days. The kids have no patience. The adults have no patience. The only constant now is a revolving credit line. There is no game anymore. It's all a microtransaction. Buy the best hardware. Buy the best internet speed. Buy the best gear. Yada yada yada. Imagine If you could merely pay the guy at the video arcade to keep your initials in the number one spot without having ever spent a minute playing the game. That's today's world. The achievement isn't in earning it, the achievement is in acquisition. There is a distinction, but no one cares anymore.

So whether it's pay for convenience or pay to win, it's pay someone else to play the game for you in the end.

Well yes and no i guess from the op list. If you could buy the besta weapon and gear and esp if it i is a PVP game I would say yes.But in all other points the OP states i would say no. But thats just my opinion and im a good grinder so i am in no rush to get sad item. Because i know i will get it eventually. The hard rewarding way.I am also fine with xp pots. if people want to use them to lvl faster be my guest. Ill not touch them tough

P2w and pay for convenience are overlapping to a high degree, or rather convenience is overlapping into p2w area. Obviously pure p2w is that youcan only get the best stuff in the shop, but convenience can often be so needed for endgame that it is not realistic to play without. The example could be inventory (and similar slot/space/limitating mechanics) that can only be bought but not farmed..in almost every game that has extra inventory space convenience like that, it is not really an optional thing if you want to get very far.Still those games with inventory item shops are the few f2p games I ever touch, but that is because those games are usually based on inventory space as the only mandatory thing and therefore it is simle to judge the real cost of the game.As soon as games start to get complicated when it comes to figuring out what the real cost is, or it is obvious that the cost keeps scaling with progression, or I just get a feeling that I am being manipulated (which is a tuned sense for me), I switch polarity completely and will never touch that game even how good it may be. So yeah monetization model/details is by far the biggest decider for me these days.

The only "pay for convenience" I've found acceptable in games is where you have to pay for extra inventory slots but the game is free. As kjempff said it's easy to judge how much you will have to spend on inventory slots in a game like that to be able to enjoy it.

Other forms of what some call "pay for convenience" are not acceptable to me so I stay away from those games. Many of them I would call pay to win.